Fear The Chorizo

"#Time's Up...to Score" Seinfeld reference..."NO MORE RUNS FOR YOU!" "Derek Johnson's resume builders" "Closers R' Us"

I've seen this a few times. Can someone explain how a guy who's playing and hitting is having a "wasted" year? He's gotten a lot of AB's vs professional pitchers and performed extremely well. That's hardly a "waste." The professional pitchers he's faced thus far haven't been over A+, and I'd argue that Hiura's bat was advanced beyond that level from the day he was drafted as a collegiate junior. Sure, stud prospects, particularly advanced college bats, get some time in the low minors to rake offensively until being called up quickly to AA / AAA on their way to the majors - but to me the only question on Hiura being an everyday MLB player as early as next year is whether he's developed enough defensively. To me that's the biggest plus for Hiura at the lower minor league levels - giving him consistent playing time in the field to develop as a second basemen, something he barely did in college due to the arm issues. IMO, if he goes through this entire season primarily DH-ing and enters the offseason with the very same question marks about his defense/arm issues as the day he was drafted last June, it's a wasted year. He has started playing a bit defensively over the last few games, and I do hope the solution isn't surgery for Hiura...however, the solution needs to be something better than hoping his arm feels better after awhile. Hindsight is always 20/20, but if he does wind up requiring the TJ surgery many baseball people expected him to need, it'll be a shame it wasn't done the day after he signed last summer instead of 1+ years into his career as a Brewer. Hiura would've likely been rehabbed from surgery and ready to hit the ground running at the start of this season, with the distinct possibility finishing 2018 at the same milb level as he will now without yet having the surgery - biggest difference is should he go under the knife now, he'll open 2019 back at square one rehabbing instead of having a legit shot at the majors in May/June 2019.

RH starter and a whopping 2 lh hitters in the starting lineup... Perez starting over Villar after Villar easily had the best ABs through their last game is just stupid. If I'm a brewer beat writer that's the only question I ask postgame until I get a decent answer.

It's really not that many when you think about it. I'd venture a guess that if you take out warm ups and around the horn type stuff, in an actual game situation, a 2b probably throws the ball less than 10 times fairly easily. why would you take out those throws? they are often very similar to most throws a 2B needs to make to 1B during an active play. More often than not pregame infield is where a fielder makes most of his throws during a given gameday, particularly in the minors.

Seems weird to limit a position player's PT because of his arm. Legs or back makes sense because you're constantly using those things on every play. But it is nearly impossible to predict how many throws your 2B will make in a game. It's also weird for pitchers to do towel drills or bunt coverage at 25% speed - baseball does weird things. I highly doubt Hiura is just standing at 2nd pregame and between the innings not making throws. He may only get 3-5 chances in game situations over a nine inning game, but he's probably making at least 6 throws every half inning between warm ups and throwing it around the horn after a strikeout with nobody on. It's not like a grounder to 2B requires Hiura to throw a 100% effort seed 200' on a line, either. Seems more like predetermined planning that takes the guesswork out of how long he'd be in the field until they're comfortable taking off the reins.

No way - he's played 2B the last two games...he's been pulled after 6 and 7 innings after what appears to be a plan to phase him back onto the field. The 2B solution for 2018 needs to be getting rid of the pile of MIF roster fodder currently on the 40-man roster and replacing at least one of them with a quality veteran rental at the trade deadline (Lowrie, Dozier could be attractive options should either the A's or Twins be out of it in 2 months) Hiura's the 2B solution to the MLB roster longterm - with all the angst about his arm to me it was a positive that he basically made it through an entire MLB spring training without missing time throwing during drills/practice/games. Even if Hiura needs surgery later this year and 2019 winds up being mostly rehab for him, the Brewers have gotta give him every opportunity to play 2B everyday in Milwaukee sometime between now and 2021.

He made the Marlins roster to start the season, but was injured and hasn't come off the DL. So basically Cooper is back on a AA caliber roster...good for him!

I'd much rather Arcia draw walks more often than not to get to the pitcher's spot instead of swinging at garbage. Doing so rolls the lineup over more for the top of the order to start fresh innings, and the occasional pitcher fluke hit in those situations almost always leads to crooked numbers. However, Arcia's been so bad offensively teams aren't even really trying to pitch around him to get to the pitcher's spot with runners on - so this is probably a mute point.

Brown's delivery even mirrors Sheets' at the point where he's releasing the ball!

With regards to Arcia, half of his 2018 hits have occurred in just 5 multi-hit games. He's had 11 1-hit games, and 16 o-fers...more K's than hits and just 5 walks hitting in front of the pitcher when more often than not he could be getting pitched around if there's runners on (rare towards the bottom of the Brewer batting order this year, I know) and Arcia would lay off pitches outside the zone he can't do damage with. He's been consistently a non-factor offensively, and that needs to change for him to stay on the field everyday regardless of how great his defense is. His 2018 statline currently matches up closer to his 2016 MLB cup of coffee, which is troubling - because in 2017 he made some strides offensively to the point where he was an occasional difference-maker at the bottom of the lineup and his bat didn't negatively hamper his value as a player. Seems to me like his approach has gone downhill at the plate - and it never was good to begin with - probably trying to do too much with at bats trying to swing his way out of a rough start, and that's making it worse.

Hiura's now played 2b in back to back games - getting pulled in the 6th 1st night and after the 7th last night...seems like they've got a plan to progressively keep in the game defensively a bit longer until he's back to playing 9 innings nightly there. That's a really good thing. If his bat is still producing and he's playing everyday at 2nd by the end of the Carolina league's 1st half, I can see him moving up to Biloxi this summer and having a legit shot at Milwaukee in 2019

You don't get those guys in trades for your valuable trade pieces. That's where you sign scrubs like Nieuwenhuis types to fill that spot until a prospect or someone comes along. Valuable trade pieces?? What more do you want for Segura following his 2015 season, who at the time had about half of one quality mlb season followed by 2 plus seasons of bad as a Brewer with arbitration on the way, and TT who has proven to be damaged goods and had his share of arm issues as a brewer leading up to his one good year?

The stage both Anderson and Shaw were at in their careers when they were dealt to Milwaukee made them far from what a contending team looks to acquire to fill MLB roster holes, so this argument is pretty foolish. After outperforming what their expectations were, maybe now the both fit the profile of an everyday corner IF or mid-rotation starter that won't kill a good team...but that wasn't Shaw in early 2017 or Anderson in early 2016. both were MLB-ready players with relatively low ceilings at positions where the Brewers needed roster filler as part of anticipated rebuilding seasons, and both trades included younger prospects that at the time appeared to have higher MLB ceilings attached to them that were widely viewed as the centerpieces of those trades (Dubon, Pennington, and Diaz). I'd argue both Shaw and Anderson vastly outperformed expectations and contributed to the team outperforming as well in 2017.

strikeouts are less damaging to big innings than double play balls...but when 13 of 21 outs thus far are recorded without the defense having to make any kind of play it really doesn't matter all that much, does it?

They're going to get bageled again, aren't they?

Carrasco with 10K through 5IP, barely over 60 pitches...that's really tough to do against even a bad offensive club considering 1/2 those pitches are either called or swinging strikes.

OMG Pina...horrid

Now that Guerra got through 5IP, I agree...when I made that post about Perez possibly pitching he just gave up 4 runs with no outs in the 4th and Guerra getting at least 6 more outs seemed pretty far-fetched.

They let good early pitches right down the middle go by and end up swinging at crap outside the zone. Not a very aggressive offense... It's not about being too passive - I think in general alot of Brewer hitters aren't good at identifying pitches to hit and being selectively aggressive with them given game situations. Basically their approaches are terrible and they seem to be guessing alot at the plate.

depending on how the next couple innings go, this may be a game we see Perez toe the bump to preserve the pen - would stink to burn through the entire pen right before leaving on a 10-game road trip with only 1 offday more than a week out. Or both Lopez and Williams should get alot of work...

welp...

Junior may not be much longer for this game if he can't limit the damage here...Brewers really could use a deep start from him before heading to CO

Would be a tough pill for the brewers to swallow to have a big chunk of Dubon's mlb service time eaten up by spending time on the mlb 60 day dl rehabbing an ACL surgery, too.

Again, it's probably got just as much to do with Orf not being on the 40 man and the current pinch they're in - I'd just as soon DFA Sogard and have Orf take his spot on the 40 man, but apparently the Brewers don't want that.

That theory assumes that the starters at the MIF positions are actually doing something with the bat. Last thing the lineup needs is another guy that makes too many outs. That's not Saladino's problem - that's on Brewers' management for not having better everyday options internally to begin with. And it's also on the rest of the everyday position players currently underperforming offensively (Shaw, Braun, Cain recently, Pina, Santana) to take some pressure off the need for middle infielders to start raking. Having to speculate whether Orf or Saladino is the best fit for what this team currently needs basically means there are no good internal options right now.